'AMERICA HAS NO SENSE OF DANGER'

Most of the others made the same decision. The British Government of the day seemed to agree with them. Bunny Austin, who had returned to Britain before war began, and William Jaeger sailed to join Buchman in December, after consulting the Ministries of Labour, Defence and Foreign Affairs. They were granted exit permits and never asked to return. Yet they, like those already with Buchman, were to be chased by reporters and denounced in sections of the British press for many years.*

Buchman with H. W. 'Bunny' Austin and his wife

(* The assault on Austin was to continue long after the war was over, in spite of his later service in the American Air Force, and untruths about him are still believed by many to this day. He had to wait until 1984 to be restored to membership of the All-England Lawn Tennis Club at Wimbledon.)

Certainly they had nothing material to gain from staying. They worked very long hours without pay, and money, even for survival, was often short. Of one period in Seattle, Hale writes, 'I had breakfast one morning with Buchman and he ordered one breakfast, halving with me the poached egg and toast. Another morning five of us English pooled our wealth and found we had fifteen cents. We ordered three cups of coffee and asked for two extra cups. That was breakfast. We lived three miles from where the morning meeting was being held. The other four hitched a lift but I elected to walk. I got lost and arrived late. The leader of the meeting asked me why. I was tired, hungry and fed up. "I'm late because I didn't have the bus fare." About three hundred pairs of eyes came round and stared at me. The leader of the meeting went round all fifty from overseas and asked how much money we had. We couldn't have raised $20 between us. From then on our friends in Seattle knew that MRA was financed by faith and prayer. Until then it was a theory.'11 These painful decisions taken by most of Buchman's British colleagues, and a few from Scandinavia and elsewhere, enabled Buchman to continue his nation-wide programme in America. But what kind of programme would arouse Americans? And how could it be presented in a way which would make them ready and anxious to listen?

These questions haunted Buchman during the first months of 1940, constantly on the move between New York, Washington, Florida, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In each place he was spending time with his resident teams and meeting people at all times of the day and night. His secretary, Dr Morris Martin, records him as 'very tired'. 'These are exceptionally heavy days,' he noted on 9 January, 'spent with an at first unresponsive team. Also every lunch and dinner with someone uses a lot of energy.' Always Buchman was struggling to see what to do next. 'I feel as if I were in a thick forest,' he said to a friend one day. 'I don't see the way out.’12

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